Questions must be asked on what workers will gain

Dear Editor

The left and the labour movement must intervene in the debate around Brexit to put forward a working-class perspective.

So far, it has been a largely neoliberal dialogue between Prime Minister Theresa May and her pro-EU opponents.

Both sides base their arguments on a belief in free-market fundamentalism, whether inside or outside the EU and its single market.

Exit from these opens up greater possibilities for workers to assert their rights through collective bargaining and for a progressive government to support industry and regulate investment, trade and the exploitation of migrant labour.

But the Tories are prepared to barter these prospective economic freedoms away in order to obtain trade and investment deals with the EU and the US, Canada, Turkey and Japan.

Access to European and other markets under World Trade Organisation rules would be preferable to extending neoliberal freedoms for big business.

The Communist Party believe the SNP is promoting the “politics of grievance” and that their opportunistic attempt to link a new Scottish independence referendum to Scotland staying in the EU or single market is backfiring.

The SNP haven’t taken full account of the fact that around a third of proindependence voters last time were also opposed to EU membership, a point highlighted by left nationalist Jim Sillars.

The right of the Scottish people to national self-determination is beyond question, but how we exercise that right should – for workers – be determined by class politics.

Where lie the real interests of the working class and the Scottish people generally?

The Communist Party advocates a fully federal Britain in which national parliaments have full powers to intervene in the economy, combined with a radical redistribution of wealth across its nations and regions to benefit workers and their families.

Scottish Labour’s recent decision to embrace this perspective of progressive federalism is overdue but very welcome.

We dispute whether the SNP stands for genuine independence for Scotland at all. What kind of independence would it be which submits Edinburgh governments and the Scottish people to rules and policies decided by the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, and membership of the EU and NATO?

How would Scottish workers gain from leaving their biggest single market by far – Britain – in order to remain in the relatively insignificant European one?

We need working class and labour movement unity in favour of progressive federalism (what was called home rule) and the election of a left- led Labour government at Westminster.

John Campbell, Airdrie secretary, Communist Party Lanarkshire branch